B V 

Me5 



I : 




^^<Si^ 



(^. ^ ( 



,f LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 

I # , # 

U|f,lui!). loanriqlit -ko. ^ 

{ ^^^^ Ms>o 

j^ 

If UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 









<3oij 



4.<5S, (g; 









^^vsc;<^cr 



l^f^^fg 



'<SkCjrcXjC 






<M<zMm 












-COf^r^rf 



?;'rf< 



/ 



THE 



The Libraov 

OF C«^' 



Royal Law of Love; 

OR, 

LOVE IN RELATION TO LAW 
AND TO GOD. 

2C]^e Baccalaureate Sermon 

Preached before the College of New Jersey, 
June 27, 1875. 



By JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 



oi«<o 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS. 

1875. 



1^ 



Copyrighty 

By Robert Carter & Brothers. 

1875. 



Cambridge : 
Press of yolui Wilson 6^ So7i. 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 



" Love is the fulfilling of the lawT — Rom. xiii. lO. 
'^^ If ye fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shall love 
thy neighbor as thyself ye do weliy — James ii. 8. 

TN these passages there is a reference to three things, 
-^ — to Love, to Law, and a King. I see before me 
an arch set up on earth, and spanning the heavens ; 
the one side is -Law, the other side is Love, and 
the key-stone binding and crowning the whole is God. 
Our theme is the Royal Law of Love. Let us con- 
template Love and Law first separately, and then in 
their combination in God. 

I. Love. 

It may manifest itself in two forms, which should 
be carefully distinguished. 

The Love of Complacency, We delight in the object 
or person beloved. It is thus that the mother clasps 
her infant to her bosom ; thus that the sister interests 
herself in every movement of her little brother, and is 
proud of his feats ; thus that the father, saying little 
but feeling much, follows the bright career of his son 
in the competitions of the college, and the still more 
trying rivalries of the world ; thus that the student 



4 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

seeks the society of his classmates, is grieved when 
he has to separate from them, and casts a fond look 
towards their coming career ; thus that throughout 
our Hves our hearts, if we have hearts, cHng round 
the tried friends of our youth; thus that the wife 
would leave this world with her last look on her 
husband ; thus that the father would depart with his 
sons and his daughters around his couch. There is a 
"last look which love remembers," that given, for 
instance, when the ship moves away with the dear 
friend in it, or when the soul leaves the earth to wing 
its way to heaven. Love looks out for the persons 
beloved. The mother soon discovers her son in that 
crowd ; the blacksmith 

" Hears his daughter's voice 
Singing in the village choir." 

The believer will steal away in fancy from the busy 
scenes of life to meet with his Saviour ; and I am per- 
suaded that when he reaches heaven he will recognize, 
without requiring to be told, the One whom he has 
so loved. 

In a higher sphere and in an older age, even from 
the beginning, the love of God, of God who is love, 
was exercised in the fellowship of Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost ; for the eternal Logos says, " I was 
daily his delight, rejoicing always before him," and 
^'my delights were with the sons of men " (Prov. viii. 
30, 31). It has always appeared to me to be a very 
beautiful expression of that love that is given by the 
prophet Zephaniah (iii. 17), "He will rejoice over thee 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 5 

with joy ; he will rest in his love, he will joy over 
thee with singing/' '' Likewise I say unto you there 
is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one 
sinner that rcpenteth." There were music and danc- 
ing in the house of the father when the prodigal re- 
turned. But Zephaniah, by a bolder representation 
than could have been employed by any but a Hebrew 
prophet, speaks of our Heavenly Father as so rejoicing 
over the return of sinners, — "I will joy over you with 
singing." 

The Love of Benevoleiice. This is a higher form of 
love. In this we not only delight in the contempla- 
tion and society of the persons beloved : we wish well 
to them, we wish them all that is good. " Therefore 
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them : for this is the law and the 
prophets." We will oblige them if we can ; we will 
serve them if in our power ; we will watch for oppor- 
tunities of promoting their welfare ; we will make sac- 
rifices for their good. This love is ready to flow forth 
towards relatives and friends, towards neighbors and 
companions, towards all with whom we come in con- 
tact : it will go out towards the whole family of man- 
kind. We are ready to increase their happiness, and 
in the highest exercises of love to raise them in the 
scale of being, and to exalt them morally and spiritu- 
ally. 

The love of God thus manifests itself in multiply- 
ing happiness, in spreading holiness. He is not only 
Light, but the Fountain of lights ; and the light that 
is in him, like that of the sun, shines on all around. 



6 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 

God is known by his works. He made us and not 
we ourselves. He provides for our wants ; he cares 
for us, and is ready to guide and to comfort us. 
Higher than all, " God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
Abraham saw all this in the mount which he called 
Jehovah-jireh, as it is said to this day, " In the mount 
of the Lord it shall be seen." He had been com- 
manded to offer his son in sacrifice ; he had travelled 
with him three whole days, exposed to such questions : 
*' Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb 
for a burnt-offering } " He had bound him on the 
altar, and taken up the knife to slay him ; but now, 
to his inexpressible relief, he heard the voice, " Now I 
know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not 
withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abra- 
ham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind 
him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns : and 
Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up 
for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son." Abra- 
ham must then have comprehended, and we, by pay- 
ing a visit to that Mount of the Lord, can conceive, 
how great the love of God, who spared Isaac, but 
spared not his own Son, but gave him freely to 
the death in our room and stead. " Herein indeed 
is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved 
us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins." 

This second is the higher aspect of love. The 
other belongs in man to a lower department of his 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. / 

nature. It is an exercise merely of emotional attach- 
ment, and may contain nothing virtuous or holy : it 
may be merely like the attachment of a dog to its 
master. The love of benevolence is of a higher sort : 
we wish to do good ; we strive to do good to those 
whom we love. The one is like a genial heat in a 
closed apartment ; the other is like a fire radiating 
on all around. The one is a lake, reflecting heaven 
on its bosom ; the other is a fountain, welling up and 
carrying with it a refreshing influence. " If a brother 
or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one 
of you say unto them. Depart in peace, be ye warmed ; 
notwithstanding ye give them not those things which 
are needful to the body ; what doth it profit 1 " It is 
this love of benevolence that is *' the fulfilling of the 
law.'' It flows out in a great number and variety of 
forms : in compassion, in pity, in tenderness, in long- 
suffering, in patience. The high priest in old time 
wore a breastplate with twelve precious stones ; but 
every true Christian is a priest, and carries on his 
breast a more ornamental tablet, thus described : 
" Charity suffereth long and is kind ; charity envieth 
not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth 
not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is 
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; rejoiceth not in 
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things." Christians in this world of sin, sorrow, and 
suffering have a means of showing love, such as is not 
available to angels in the spotless mansions of heaven : 
they can and should, like their great Master, *' bear 



8 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 

the contradiction of sinners," and should have com- 
passion on the ignorant and on those who are gone 
out of the way/' 

But it may be asked, How can this benevolence be 
exhibited by us towards God, who is independent of 
us, and needs not our aid ? The answer is. We 
identify ourselves with him, and strive to promote his 
glory, and the causes in which he is interested. We 
make it our prayer, " Thy kingdom come, thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven." True we have to 
say (Ps. xvi. 2, 3), " my goodness extendeth not to 
thee ; " but we should add, " but to the saints that are 
in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my 
delight," and in loving whom we feel that we are loving 
God. 

These two forms of love, while they may be distin- 
guished, should never be separated. But in fact they 
have often been divorced the one from the other. 
How often do men show the love of complacency, 
without the love of benevolence ! They delight in 
the society of, and they receive gratification from, per- 
sons whom they do not seek to benefit. They do 
worse : they injure those to whom they are attached, 
as the ivy is apt to destroy the tree which it embraces 
and adorns. They do so by indulging, by flattering, 
by tempting them. The doting mother spoils the child 
whom she so fondles. The seducer ruins the unhappy 
one whom he clasps in his foul embrace. There is a 
love that is not lovely. It is, in fact, a refined form of 
selfishness. For our gratification and pleasure we lay 
hold of and hug to our bosoms objects which we only 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 9 

corrupt. I apprehend that much of human sinfulness 
consists in tearing asunder what should be kept united, 
in selfishly delighting in persons, and turning them to 
our uses only to tempt and destroy them. It has 
often been remarked that the worst things are the 
perversion of good things. Abused intellectual gifts 
make the dangerous villain. Abused sensibilities 
make the accomplished tempter. Abused affections 
gender the keenest of all misery. 

How terrible the chasms produced by sin in our 
world ! That virtuous mother looks with unutterable 
horror upon the conduct of her drunken son ; yet she 
would die for him at any moment, provided she could 
thereby save him. Nay, has not sin by its dissevering 
and destructive power kept asunder in a sense what had 
ever before been united in the mind of God 1 It has 
been disputed among theologians whether God can 
love or be a father to sinners yet in their sins. The 
distinction I have drawn solves the question. I can- 
not very well see how God should look on the sinner 
with complacency. *' God is angry with the wicked 
every day" (Ps. vii. 11). " I hate them with perfect 
hatred " (Ps. cxxxix. 22). But, on the other hand, he 
loves the sinner ; loves him with an everlasting love ; 
he loves him with the love of compassion. " How 
shall I give thee up, Ephraim } how shall I deliver 
thee, O Israel 1 how shall I make thee as Admah 1 
how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned 
within me, my repentings are kindled together." In 
a like way our Lord was the friend of publicans and 
sinners ; not that he approved of their conduct, — he 



lO THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, ' 

reprobated it more than the Pharisee did, who turned 
away from them in scorn, — but he wept over the com- 
ing doom on Jerusalem ; and his very purpose in 
coming to this world was to seek and save that which 
is lost. In this, as in every other particular, we are 
to copy him who has set us an example that we should 
follow his steps. It is not expected of us that we 
should have pleasure in the society of the licentious, 
the selfish, the malignant : but we are to feel for them ; 
as human beings we are to pity them, and seek to 
allure them to God and to good. 

II. I,AW. 

Law was in the nature of God from all eternity, 
and is the instrument of his government : it was 
inscribed on the nature of man when he was created ; 
it was graven by God's own finger on the granite 
blocks of Sinai ; it was spoken in gentle and attrac- 
tive tones by our Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount, 
and it is written by God's own Spirit as a new com- 
mandment on the hearts of God's people. It goes 
with man wherever he goes, to tell him, if he is 
prepared to listen to it, what is right and what is 
wrong, and in the end to punish him if he refuses to 
obey. It is so essential a part of his nature, that it 
will follow him into the regions below, to torment him 
more than the worm that never dies, than the fire that 
is not quenched. 

That law has been broken, but is still binding. 
When Moses came down from the Mount with the 
two tables, he threw them from him, and broke them, 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, II 

when he witnessed the wickedness of the children of 
Israel. But he had just to reascend to the Mount 
and have them written again by God's own finger. 
Which thing may be unto us for an allegory. Man 
has broken God's law ; but that law retains all its 
claims, and ever renews them. The law is embodied 
in the gospel. All this was instructively represented 
in the ark of the covenant, laid up in the holiest of 
all, and typifying the new covenant. On the lid of it 
were the cherubim, overshadowing the blood-sprinkled 
mercy-seat; and the promise was given : "There will 
I meet with thee, and commune with thee on the mer- 
cy-seat from between the cherubim." But v/ithin the 
ark were the two tables of stone. Christ came not 
to destroy the law, but to fulfil. The gospel, wherever 
it goes, carries within it the law fulfilled by Christ, 
the law still binding on his followers. There is a 
sense in which believers are free from the law ; they 
are free from its curse : but in another sense they 
are still under it ; they are not free from the obligation 
to obey it. When sinners come to Christ he welcomes 
them ; he says, Your sins be forgiven you ; but 
he does not give them liberty to go back to their 
sins, but, " go and sin no more." Just as the father, 
after rejoicing over the return of his prodigal son, 
took him into his house to keep him in safety, so our 
Heavenly Father takes us into his family to train us 
to obedience. When the sinner comes to Christ, Christ 
pays his debts, but it is only to send him to pay his 
dues, not in the oldness of the letter, but the newness 
of the spirit. In heaven itself, the soul, brought into 



12 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 

unison with the law of love, will be fulfilling it to 
perfection : and the music of heaven will consist es- 
sentially in attuned hearts, each breathing its own 
melody, and all in harmony ; hearts in accord with 
the heart of God and in accord with one another, and 
fulfilling the pleasure of God for ever and ever. 

The law has two marked features. 

// is Imperative. It speaks as one having authority : 
it speaks in the name of God. It says, *' Thou shalt 
do this, thou shalt not do that.'' " The Categorical 
Imperative " was the designation given it by the great 
German metaphysician. Its function is not to tell 
us what is, but what ought to be. All its afi&rmations 
are commands ; all its negations are prohibitions. It 
has rewards rich and numerous for those who obey it. 
It has penalties, certain and terrible, for those who 
transgress it. God has a vicegerent to sustain it, in 
the conscience, "which shows the work of the law 
written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing 
witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, 
or else excusing one another.'* There is a witness 
within, which constrains us to acknowledge its right 
to obedience. 

It is Determinative. It is categorical ; it has its 
definite requirements which it cannot forego, and will 
not lower. " Guilty or not guilty," are the alterna- 
tives it proposes. It admits of no middle course or 
compromise ; it accepts of no excuse ; it will not 
listen to any plea or extenuation. 

In this respect, the order, the regularities, of the 
physical world resemble it. Hence for the last two 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 13 

hundred years they have been called laws, laws of 
nature, as supposed to have been enacted by a law- 
giver. It is interesting to notice that they are called 
" ordinances" in Scripture (Ps. cxix. 91). " They con- 
tinue this day according to thine ordinances, for all are 
thy servants." We hear much in these times of the 
laws of nature, of their being so fixed and immutable. 
Those who speak in this way are apt to forget that 
there is another law which is still more unchangeable, 
and shall abide when the heavens are rolled up like a 
scroll. It is by these two kinds of law, the one 
Moral, the " greater light," and the other Natural, 
" the lesser light," that God rules our world, — by the 
one moral agents, by the other physical agents, — 
making them all combine and conspire towards one 
good and grand end. 

In one respect the two are alike : both are inflexible. 
But they differ. The laws of nature admit of no ex- 
ceptions. They cannot be changed except by Him 
who appointed them. The will of man cannot arrest 
them. Gravitation is as ready to bring down an un- 
supported stone to crush us, as it is to keep the earth 
moving on beneficently in its sphere. The winds 
which drive on the vessel one day, may sink it in the 
deep the next. The chemical affinities which prepare 
food to nourish us are ready to mix poison to kill us. 
On the other hand, moral laws may be broken. We 
are now in the region of the will. In order to be a 
moral agent man must be a free agent. Love that is 
constrained is not love. Morality compelled is not 
true morality. So moral law may be broken, while 



14 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

physical law cannot. But moral law, properly under- 
stood, is quite as inflexible, as unrelenting, as natural 
law. If we neglect the laws of health, the conse- 
quences may be disease or death. But if we violate 
the laws of morality, the consequences may be, must 
be, much more fatal in a condemning conscience, or 
in judgments to descend in this life or the life to 
come. Natural law, which moves on so regularly, so 
irresistibly, so beneficently, is the fittest outward type 
and emblem of that moral law which rules the heaven 
and controls the earth. 

III. Relation of Love and Law in God. 

The planet is held in its sphere by two influences ; 
one impelling, the other staying it. So it is with 
moral beings : they are draw^n by love, but it is love 
regulated by law. It is well that the earth should 
have an attraction towards the sun, without which it 
would wander into an outer region of coldness, dark- 
ness, and destruction ; but were there no restraining 
power it would be drawn into the sun's atmosphere, 
and be consumed by his heat. In like rnanner, moral 
excellence implies of necessity these two things, love 
and law ; the one to attract, the other to guide in the 
right path. 

It is not easy to embody in human- conceptions, and 
to express in human language, the relation of law and 
love. We know that the two are closely connected. 
Their connection is in God, the source of both. Even 
as God is the origin of all other things, of nature, of 
force, of matter, of mind, so is he also the origin of 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 15 

love and law. AH these streams, if we follow them 
up sufficiently far, carry us to the fountain. Love is 
the refreshing water ; the law is the channel for it to 
flow in ; and the spring is in the bosom of God. " Let 
us love one another, for love is of God.'' Charity is 
the highest of all the graces : " There abideth these 
three, faith, hope, and charity ; but the greatest of 
these is charity." But then charity never tries to set 
itself above law ; if it did so, it might work only mis- 
chief. " Love is the fulfilling of the law." Love takes 
the form of a commandment. When asked by the 
lawyer, *' Which is the great commandment in the 
law } Jesus said unto him. Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy mind ; this is the first and great com- 
mandment, and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two com- 
mandments hang all the law and the prophets." Thus 
indissolubly are charity and commandment joined in 
Scripture. It is love that makes us like unto God, 
who is love ; but the love of God is a love regulated 
by eternal justice. 

We cannot by any process of analysis get rid of 
either of these elements. Defective systems of ethics 
arise from omitting one or other, or not giving each 
its due place. A stoic, a pharisaic morality leaves 
out love, and presents only the expressionless form 
of law. Utilitarianism leaves out eternal and un- 
changeable obligation, and offers a flexible morality, 
suiting itself to supposed results. My illustrious 
predecessor, Jonathan Edwards, the greatest thinker 



l6 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

that this country has produced, in whose dazzling 
beams the others of us appear merely as the smaller 
planets passing over the disc of the sun, has made a 
bold attempt to resolve all virtue into love. But then 
he has to make it love to being as being. The very 
statement shows that there is another element as well 
as love. There is love to bei7tg as being, showing that 
being has claims, and that there must be some means 
of determining the claims of being as being. We 
ought to love God and our neighbor. Yes, but 
whence this word '' ought " so full of meaning } Why 
should I love any one but myself .-^ Our deepest nat- 
ure gives the response, and will continue to do so, 
whether we attend to it or no. All this implies that 
alongside of love there is law, commanding and de- 
manding. Far as the eye can reach, the two are seen 
to run parallel. I do not say that they never meet, for 
they meet in the nature of God and of all holy beings. 
And, though often dissevered here, they will meet at 
last in the character of saints in heaven, with whom 
love will be law, and law will be love. 

"What therefore God hath joined together, let not 
man put asunder." There is no propriety in drawing 
invidious comparisons as to the relative importance 
of the two. It might be argued that law is the higher ; 
for it commands love, says when it is to flow, and 
where it is to stay. But then love is the very end for 
which the law exists : the end of the commandment 
is charity. Law without love is a mere form without 
life : love without law is a life without a body in 
which to reside. Law without love is a channel with- 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. I 7 

out a stream ; love without law may be a stream, 
bursting forth and spreading destruction. Let the 
two revolve round each other like binary stars, each 
with its own color, the one the complement of the 
other. Let Righteousness stand for ever on the pedes- 
tal on which he has been set up, with his high look 
and unbending mien, the master and the guardian ; 
and ever beside him, beneath him, and leaning upon 
him, yet beautiful and graceful as he, let there be seen 
Love, with smiles upon her face and gifts in her 
hands. 

I believe they were never separated till sin appeared. 
Alas, that seducer and corrupter has severed them ! 
There has arisen a stern doctrine, which has no ten- 
derness ; whose gaze is as unmoved and unmovable as 
that of the Egyptian sphinx, looking out from its desert 
of sand. If there be theologians still dwelling in a cold 
palace of ice, I recommend them to let the beams of 
the sun of righteousness shine upon it and thaw it. I 
look upon the Shorter Catechism as the best compend 
of Scripture truth which we' have in any language; but 
I have sometimes felt that there is less of love in it 
than there is in the Scriptures, and that it serves a 
good end when the teacher puts a smile upon its coun- 
tenance to attract the youth who has to learn it. It 
was rather an empty ark which they had to look into 
in Solomon's time, when they found nothing there but 
the tables of stone, and not their accompaniments, — 
Aaron's rod that budded, signifying life from the dead ; 
nor the pot of manna, typifying food for the weak. 
But the defect I am now speaking of belongs rather 



1 8 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

to the seventeenth than' the nineteenth century. We 
are now more in danger of a sentimental and a sim- 
pering faith, acting the part of a Dehlah, professing 
love to the man who boasts that he is strong, only in 
the end to show how weak he is, and to consign him 
to blindness and darkness. Let us have charity, they 
say : but charity without principle to guide it may 
distribute its gifts very indiscriminately and injuri- 
ously. Let us have fire, they insist : but we cannot 
have fire without fuel to feed it, and fire cannot be 
allowed to burn and consume in every place, and as it 
pleases. While the sun has a photosphere to radiate 
its beneficent influence, it has also a solid body to 
keep up the supply of heat and light. There should 
be a vessel to contain the pleasant incense that we 
offer, otherwise it will soon dissipate into inanity. 

By all means let us make our religion attractive, as 
attractive as the character of Jesus. But Jesus came 
to fulfil the law and the prophets ; and, while he al- 
lowed the woman that was a sinner to bathe his feet 
with her tears, he drove out those who polluted his 
temple, made those fall back who assailed him. And 
we read of what I suppose is the most terrible thing 
in the universe, " the wrath of the Lamb." It is 
doubtless to this that reference is made when it is said 
that *' our God is a consuming fire." If we would 
make love fulfil its divine mission, we must associate 
with it the eternal truth with which it is combined in 
the Word. Let us never allow ourselves to suppose 
that we can improve the Scriptures by shearing off 
some pointed truths supposed to be offensive. Let 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 19 

the sun shine there in the heavens in all its bright- 
ness, even though it should dazzle our eyes : we need 
all its light to show us the way in which we should 
walk ; the plants need all its heat to mature and to 
ripen them. There are statements in that Word of 
which I wished, as I remember, in the petulance of 
youth, that they had not been there. But I have been 
made by experience, often bitter, to see the truth and 
awful importance of them. Whether we see it now 
or no, all believers will see in the end that ** all Scrip- 
ture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
for doctrine, for rejtroof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness, that the man of God may be 
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 

There is a theology known as the Princeton theol- 
ogy, defended by good and great men, some of them 
now seeing the truth still more clearly in the mansions 
above, but some of them still spared to us. It is in 
fact simply the Reformation theology. It is the the- 
ology of Paul in all his epistles. If any of us have in 
any respect fallen beneath the spirit of Jesus and of 
the Word, let us acknowledge our fault and amend ; 
but we dare not meanwhile abandon the truth which 
has been held so firmly and defended so ably among us. 
If any of us have been supercilious, saying, " Stand by, 
for I am holier than thou," let us hasten to bow our- 
selves at the feet of Jesus, and learn of him to be 
meek and lowly. If any have allowed their ortho- 
doxy, like the frost, to cover over and cool their hu- 
manity, let them place their hearts under the beams 
of him who *' maketh his sun to rise on the evil and 



20 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and the un- 
just/' and their systems will be better. But, whatever 
improvement we may make in cultivating and cherish- 
ing the spirit of charity, there is one thing we can 
never do, and that is, to lower the standard of doctrine 
or of duty. Amidst the shif tings of human fancy and 
speculation which spring up and wither like the grass, 
the Princeton theology, like the Word of God on which 
it is founded as on a rock, " endureth for ever.'' 

It is true that there have been men who have 
preached or practised a pharisaic morality ; that is, a 
law without love. A law has been set forth and en- 
forced which is not the law of love, and has driven 
men away from God, who is love, and from the gospel, 
which is essentially a message of reconciliation from 
God to sinful man. The terrors of the law have been 
used, not as by Paul to persuade men, but to tempt 
or drive them to rebellion or resistance. In ages past 
law has been used lawlessly by monarchs and by mas- 
ters. But in the present day the tendency seems all 
the other way. If there were tyrannies in old-world 
monarchies which we in these times are not slow to 
condemn, there is licentiousness in new-world republics 
which it might be as useful and important for us to 
expose and condemn. People were rather astonished 
when not long ago the preacher of a great university 
took as his text on a public occasion, " Thou shalt not 
steal." But he was speaking the truth for the time 
now present, which needs the commandments to be 
proclaimed as awfully as they were at Sinai, to arrest 
the corruptions of individuals and of rings. Some 



i 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 21 

think that preachers in these times might profitably 
take as their text, " Honor thy father and thy mother/' 
If fathers erred two centuries ago in being somewhat 
too rigid with their children, it is possible that in these 
times they may not be sufficiently faithful in restrain- 
ing self-indulgence, and in training to habits of self- 
sacrifice. If some preachers, in ages gone by, preached 
hell and damnation instead of Christ, it is possible 
that some in these times are so relaxed by a weak 
charity that they have not the courage or faithfulness 
to bid men flee from the wrath to come. If there 
have been preachers in certain ages who insisted on 
nothing but stern duty, there are not a few in our 
day who recommend love without the due restraints 
of law, who are tampering with the marriage relation, 
lowering the sacredness of wedlock, and allowing such 
liberty of divorce as is fitted to brgak up the family, 
— which, I may remark, is the only means of secur- 
ing proper moral culture, and training the rising gen- 
eration to virtue. More evil may arise from lawless 
love, which is fascinating, than from hatred, which is 
repulsive. So we have no intention here in Prince- 
ton of changing the truths of God's Word, on the 
miserable pretence of making them softer and more 
lovable than God has made them in his Word. 

There is a teaching in our day antagonistic to the 
Princeton theology. It can scarcely be called a theol- 
ogy. It does not take, it cannot be made to take, any 
scientific form. It would let down doctrine and exalt 
charity, and would thereby make religion easier and 
more attractive, — as they suppose. It is " Broad 



2 2 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 

Church " in England, delivering itself from all creed. 
It is the " Religion of Humanity/' in this country, 
instead of the " Religion of Divinity for Humanity." 
It would free humanity from certain restraints and 
sacrifices with the view of exalting it. It is not just 
the same, but it is analogous to the attempt in the last 
century to do away with doctrine on the pretence of 
exalting morality, and which led to dry High Church- 
ism in England, to Moderatism in Scotland and Ulster, 
to Rationalism on the Continent of Europe, and to 
Unitarianism in this country ; and ended in all in the 
decay of religion and the lowering of morality.. The 
new gospel which has appeared among us is evidently 
running a like career. Doctrine is discarded first ; 
duty goes next, in the next man or the next age. 

It is a profound saying of one of the brothers Hare : 
"To form a correct judgment concerning the tendency 
of any doctrine, we should rather look at the forms it 
bears in the disciples than in the teacher. For he 
only made it : they ai^e made by it!' We may now 
see the kind of characters that are made in this school 
of love and humanity. There was first a turning 
away from the old doctrine, and this has been followed 
by a turning away from the old morality. I beg that 
it may be understood that I have no reference to any 
one individual ; and that I enter on no doubtful or 
disputed points. I proceed, on what is visible to all, 
on what, indeed, has been forced offensively on the 
attention of all. The feeling of many of us is, " O 
my soul, come not thou into their secret ; into their 
assembly, mine honor, be not thou united." Notwith- 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 23 

standing all the efforts to suppress the " secret," aw- 
ful disclosures have been made. We see how the 
milk of human kindness, when not restrained by law, 
is apt to be soured into hatred, how humanity sinks 
into selfishness. We se,e how perilous it is to begin 
to tamper with the most sacred of all earthly rela- 
tions. It looks as if the generation now springing 
up needed to know what sort of *' assembly " or so- 
ciety has been formed among us, and what the prac- 
tical consequences of the sentiment passing current 
in the circle. The young needed to know what kind 
of men are seeking to guide opinion in the public 
press, even the so-called religious press; men who 
keep no sabbath, but work on it as on other days ; 
who go to no place of worship, who are supposed to 
be capable of teaching others while they have aban- 
doned the religion which is the basis of ethics, and 
ridicule the holy doctrine which they know condemns 
them. The watchmen who are set on thy walls, O 
Jerusalem, need to proclaim, as loud as when seven 
thunders utter their voices, that love is to be guided 
by law, that love cannot excuse lying, whether to 
shelter the persons themselves or others ; that in 
contradictory statements there must be lying, and 
that in contradictory oaths there must be perjury of 
the deepest dye, offensive in the highest degree to 
God, and to be denounced with terrible reprobation 
by man. 

Our general subject leads me to remark that in 
Princeton College we seek to combine affection with 
discipline. In not a few of our larger colleges, the 



24 ^^^ ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 

authorities have \'irtually abandoned all attempts to 
exercise any oversight except in the way of securing 
order in the recitation rooms, and students may and 
often do fall into vicious habits without their instruc- 
tors having any knowledge of it, or the parents having 
any hint of it, till it is too late. But surely it is a 
very- serious matter to separate himdreds of young 
men from the restraints of home, and then take no 
charge of them religiously and morally. It is a very 
difficult task, I acknowledge, to combine these two 
things, love and faithfulness. I do not venture to 
affirm that we have perfectly succeeded : that, on the 
one hand, we have always shown as much s}'mpath / 
and tenderness as we should ; or that, on the other 
hand, we have been firm enough in repressing eiiL 
But I can say for the authorities of this college that 
we have been anxious to do what is right So far 
from discouraging innocent amusement and man. 
sports, we proWde them, and keep them under proper 
regulations as to hours. We frown on studious in- 
subordination and vice, on every form of equivocati.: 
or lying, and on practices which degrade those wh 
engage in them. It will be admitted by all who know 
our state that we have now got rid of nearly all the 
old practices that have disgraced American colleges, 
and that no professor remembers a year in which \\ 
have had so much quietness and propriety' of conduc 
and so much mutual confidence on the part of the 
faculty and students. 

In teaching other high branches we aim to impart 
religious instruction. I feel this to be a difficult work 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 25 

in a large college ^\'ith young men of such varied char- 
acter, some of them with as yet no taste for spiritual 
things. But we hold that the mind is not furnished 
as it ought, if, on opening to our students the riches 
(rf literatiu-e, science, and philosophy, we do not make 
them acquainted with the character and will of God. 
But this can be done only by the Scriptures : I know 
of no other religious instruction which can be of any 
value practically. So I labor to take the students 
through the Bible in a general way in our collegiate 
course of four years. This last year I have been ex- 
pounding the doctrines of the Word, with the Epistle 
to the Romans as our text-boolc Here we have a 
fuU and perfect combination of doctrine and precept, 
of law and love. Those versed in this portion of 
Scripture should be in a position to form a correct 
judgment on all subjects religious and moral, and are 
in possession of a body of principles fitted to stimu- 
late them to what is good, and to hold them back from 
what is evil. We believe that by imparting such in- 
struction, not only do we best ser\e the cause of our 
great Master, but are taking the most effective means 
to train for work and usefulness the young committed 
to our care by anxious parents and guardians. 

Gentlemen of tlu Graduating Class, — I have been 
associated with most of you very closely for the last 
Tour years. During this time, iK'sidcs pruying with 
from day to day in the chai>cl, and lecturing to 
►u and occasionally preaching to you on the Sab* 
I, I have met with you as a dasn once % w^k for 
a 



26 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

Bible instruction. During one year I had a meeting 
with you once a week for the study of the human 
mind, and with a portion of you during another for 
the study of the history of philosophy. These meet- 
ings were pleasant at the time, and the' remembrance 
of them will be precious. I realize it as a very serious 
thought that I have now to part with you. I have 
this day to inquire whether I have done my duty as I 
ought towards you ; whether I have been sufficiently 
faithful on the one hand and sufficiently tender on the 
other. I feel more deeply than I can express that I 
have lost opportunities of doing good which I should 
have embraced, and that I have not been so sympa- 
thetic as I ought in my expositions and in my coun- 
sels. But I bless God because he has given me a 
glorious opportunity of bringing before you great 
truths both in religion and philosophy ; and my 
prayer to God and to you is that you now take them 
with you and use and apply them in your beliefs and 
your actings in the varied scenes of life, overlooking 
any imperfections that may have mingled with my 
exposition of them. 

I feel as I had left much unsaid which I should 
have said ; but the omission cannot be rectified by 
trying to say it now. All I can now do is to pray 
that " what is sown in weakness may be raised in 
power." Perhaps some of the things I have said may 
come up before you once and again to animate and 
establish you ; some of the sparks may kindle a fire ; 
some of the seeds scattered may strike root. You 
have certainly received valuable instruction from the 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 2 J 

able, the faithful and laborious teachers under whom 
you have sat in this college ; and we cherish the hope 
that the knowledge gained, the habits formed, the 
principles instilled, the virtues acquired, may be so 
wrought into your nature and incorporated into your 
being that they shall come out in your general aims 
and purposes, in your character and professional 
work. 

I would send you forth from these walls with these 
two words "love" and ''law" written as a motto 
on your hearts. The one will be a well of living 
waters within you, ever springing up and refreshing 
you, and ready to flow out. Most of you have now to 
set out on a hard struggle, in which you have to pro- 
vide for your temporal wants. But I will be greatly 
disappointed if I hear of you living for mere personal 
and selfish ends. I knew a young man who devoted 
his first hard-won earnings to purchase a gift for his 
mother : he had his mother s prayers, and he rose to 
eminence. I knew another youth who consecrated 
his first money to a missionary cause. He lived to be 
one of the great missionaries of our age. There is a 
beautiful incident told of the greatest benefactor which 
our college has had in this century. The young man 
in his first business transaction had earned some 
three thousand dollars. What is he to do with it } 
to spend it on pleasures, or lay it up as a fund for es- 
tablishing a business } There is a kind family that 
had befriended him, but is now in circumstances of 
privation. He offers it all to them. It required 
strong faith to do this. But, after all, he made a 



28 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE. 

wise disposition of his money. He lent to the Lord, 
and so had the best security. The boy did all this 
from principle, and with no idea of gaining a reputa- 
tion ; but he established a character of far more value 
than gold even for the purpose of gaining gold. To 
the individual who thus began life we owe these mag- 
nificent buildings and these professors' chairs, which 
will be the means of shedding light for untold genera- 
tions. We send you forth from these walls, where 
you have received benefit from the bounty of bene- 
factors, to spread light and love, to diffuse around 
you a happy and a hallowed influence, to rejoice with 
them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 
You will seek in your spheres to advance education, to 
promote refinement, and to lead in all movements 
which further literature and science. Your Alma 
Mater expects more : she expects you to promote the 
highest good, which is spiritual good. A number, I 
know, are to devote themselves to what they believe 
to be the highest work a converted man can engage 
in, and as ministers and as missionaries are to scatter 
everywhere the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

But while love gives the steam and the sails in the 
voyage, you will always take with you moral principle 
as the anchor and the rudder. You will shrink from 
the temptation to evil, from the appearance of evil ; 
you-will turn back when you come near the border 
country that divides vice from virtue. " By reason of 
use you will have your senses exercised to discern 
both good and evil." In the end, duty as a whole will 
be felt to be pleasant as being wrought into your very 



THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 29 

nature. On certain occasions a strong effort will re- 
quire to be made ; but you will gird yourselves for 
the battle, wax valiant in the fight, and be stronger 
for the victory. " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good re- 
port, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise," 
you will think on these things and do them. 

This time of graduation constitutes an epoch in 
your history. You have come to an eminence whence 
you look back on the past and forward to the future. 
In surveying the past, you may have to rejoice over 
successes ; but beware of trusting in them. You 
gained these by application, and you will need the like 
application in the more arduous career on which you 
have now to enter. Quite as possibly you may 
have to look on failures, perhaps great failures ; time 
and opportunities of improvement lost. Surely your 
purpose this day will be to let nothing more be lost : 
you will gather lessons from your very disappoint- 
ments. You have also to look forward to the future 
which you see stretching out before you ; and you 
make this a profitable Sabbath in forming resolutions 
and laying out plans. See that they include plans of 
doing good, and that they all be undertaken in a sense 
of dependence on divine wisdom. 

We will follow you in this career on which you are 
entering with some anxiety, but with greater hope. 
We pray for your happiness ; but we pray more ear- 
nestly for your higher good, for the blessings of heaven 
to water the fruits of eai;th. While we remember you, 



30 THE ROYAL LAW OF LOVE, 

we expect you to remember us ; to visit us from time 
to time ; to pray for us, and help us to promote the 
great ends which this college lives to accomplish. 
Thus, while scattered, it may be, widely, you shall all 
be one in the family relation to your Alma Mater. 

The last tie that binds you to this institution is 
soon to be loosed, and you have to set out on a voyage 
on which there may be more or fewer tossings. But 
two things abide and are stronger than the wind or 
the steam that drive you along, and firmer than the 
compass or the anchor. One is love in the heart, love 
more enduring than life, and which will not die when 
the body dies ; the other is law, which like the arms 
of the Omnipotent, will guard you for ever. 

Met as we are this day for the last time as a band 
of brothers in the house of God, let us arrange, ere 
we part, another meeting place to which we may 
all come. Let us pledge ourselves, in the presence of 
God and of one another, that, whatever our separations, 
that wherever else we meet, or whether we meet again 
on earth or no, we will all meet, no wanderer lost, in 
the presence of God in heaven. 



THE 



Royal Law of Love; 

OR, 

LOVE IN RELATION TO LAW 
AND TO GOD. 

Wi}z Baccalaureate Setmon 

Preached before the College of New Jersey, 
June 27, 1875. 

By JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS. 

1875- 



S/iCONJ) 77 fO L/SA ND. 

The Scottish Philosophy : 

Biographical, Expository, Critical. By James McCosh, D.D., 
LL.D. 8vo. $4.00. 

" President McCosh's clal)orate work upon the * Scottish Philos- 
ophy ' cannot fail to be warmly welcomed by every student of 
Speculative Science." — New Englande7\ 

" It is characterized throughout by singular impartiality, — a feat- 
ure the more noticeable from the fact that its author is at once a 
Scotchman and a Scottish Philosopher." — Bihliotheca Sacra. 

"This book, moreover, is not exclusively a history and exposition 
of Scottish philosophers, but it intersperses biographical sketches 
of them. This brings into play that sprightly imagination and gen- 
eral vivacity of style which render even Dr. McCosh's metaphysical 
writings more buoyant and widely read than most philosophical pro- 
ductions, and which, in so favorable a field for their exercise, have 
spread over a book full of the profoundest and acutest metaphysical 
disquisition much of the fascination of a good novel. Few who 
begin the book will fail to read it through." — Presbyteriaii Quartci-Iy 
and Princeton Review. 



Ideas in Nature, Overlooked by 
Dr. Tyndall ; 

Being an Examination of Dr. Tyndall's Belfast Address. By 
James McCosh, D.D., LL.D. i2mo. Paper, 25 cents; 
cloth, 50 cents. 

" This is an argument against Tyndall, ad hot?iinem et ad rationc?n . 
It is a shot fired directly at the man and his doctrines, and to our 
mind it seems that the President demolishes the Professor. Dr. 
McCosh is pungent and forcible ; he strikes straight from the shoul- 
der ; but he is always fair, and he leaves no ground for his opponent 
to raise the cry of * persecution.' " — Church Union. 



The Royal Law of Love; 

Or, Love in Relation to Law and to God. By Dr. McCosh. 
Paper. 25 cents. 

EOBEET OAETEE AND BEOTHEES, New York. 



WORKS BY DR. McCOSH 



I. 

THE METHOD OF THE DIVINE GOVERN- 
MENT, Physical and Moral. 8vo. $2.50. 

" It is refreshing to read a work so distinguished for originaHty and soundness of 
thinking, especially as coming from an author of our own country." — Sir JVilliam 
Hamilton. 

*' This work is distinguished from other similar ones by its being based upon a 
thorough study of physical science, and an accurate knowledge of its present condition, 
and by its entering in a deeper and more unfettered manner than its predecessors upon 
the discussion of the appropriate psychological, ethical, and theological questions. 
The author keeps aloof at once from the a priori idealism and dreaminess of German 
speculation since Schelling, and from the one-sidedness and narrowness of the em- 
piricism and positivism which have so prevailed in England. In the provinces of 
psychology and ethics he follows conscientiously the facts of consciousness, and draws 
his conclusions of them commonly with penetration and logical certainty." — Dt 
Ulrici, in Zeitschrift fur Philosopkie. 

II. 

TYPICAL FORMS AND SPECIAL ENDS IN 
CREATION. By James McCosh, LL.D., and Dr. Dickie. 
8vo. $2.50. 

*' It IS alike comprehensive in its range, accurate and minute in its details, original 
in its structure, and devout and spirited in its tone and tendency. It illustrates and 
carries out the great principle of analogy in the Divine plans and works, far more 
minutely and satisfactorily than it has been done before ; and while it presents the 
results of the most profoimd scientific research, it presents them in their higher and 
spiritual relations." — Argtcs. 

III. 

THE INTUITIONS OF THE MIND. New and 
Improved edition. 8vo. $3.00. 

" No philosopher, before Dr. McCosh, has clearly brought out the stages by which 
in original and individual in tuition passes first into an articulate but still individual 
judgment, and then into a universal maxim or principle ; and no one has so clearly or 
completely classified and enumerated our intuitive convictions, or exhibited in detail 
their relations to the various sciences which repose on them as their foundations 
The amount of summarized information which it contains is very great ; and it is the 
only work on the very important subject with which it deals. Never was such a work 
so much needed as in the present day. It is the only scientific work adapted to coim- 
leract the school of Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer, which is so steadily prevailing 
among the students of the present generation." — London Quarterly Review, April 
.86^ 



WORKS BY DR. McCOSH. 



IV. 

A DEFENCE OF FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH. 

Being an Examination of Mr. J. S. Mill's Philosophy. 8vo. 

" The spirit of these discussions is admirable. Feariess and courteous, McCosl 
never hesitates to bestow praise when merited, nor to attack a heresy wherever found 
— Cong Revieiv. 

V. 

ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE: Being 
Di% McCosh's Address at his Inauguration as President of 

the College of New Jersey. 50 cents. 

VI. 

LAWS OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT: Being a 

Text-book of Formal Logic. i2mo. $1.50. 

•The position from which Dr. McCosh was called to America was the professoi- 
ship of Logic and Metaphysics in Queen's College, Belfast ; and.this volume of two 
hundred pages is the fruit of his study and experience in the department of logic. 
It is therefore a condensed but exhaustive exhibition of the principles of the science 
which he has more thoroughly mastered than perhaps any other living man. He 
has made that careful inductive investigation of the operations of the human mind 
which is essential to the constitution of the science, and freely avowing his regard foi 
the old logic, which no modern improvements have overthrown, he is fully in harmony 
with whatever the greatest thinkers of subsequent ages, even of our own times, have 
contributed to the subject. The book is admirably adapted to the use of classes 
in schools and colleges, where it will readily and rapidly find its way." — N. Y. 
Observer. 

VII. 

CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM. A Series of 
Lectures to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics. 
i2mo. $1.75. 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
New York. 






nCC€CCct.«2:c ^ ■ 



CaCr^yC €C <3:C:.Cc 

^C<SC1*« CCdC; C- 
(C:- CcC <-« ^CC^'> 

«: <3:<r^< c<?c^ -^ ■ 






Ci: C<X<^ C<5$«l!^=g>^ 






c.<<2c 



&S£M 






iccc-crc: 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS f 



iiiiiii 

029 789 317 9 



